Health Care Heroes Awardees 2007

Long Island’s health-care industry is flush with remarkable professionals whose goal is simple: to make life better for the rest of us. They are scientists, doctors, nurses, administrators and volunteers. All of them are heroes.

Over the years, they have created new treatments, fostered professional growth to insure that tomorrow’s patients get the level of care they deserve, and devised innovative programs that have changed our thinking about how to deliver that care.

Long Island Business News’ Health Care Heroes program is a tribute to these professionals, whose work, though well recognized in their niche fields, often goes unnoticed by the community at large.

How do we come up with this group? After seeking nominations from our readers, we bring together a distinguished panel of health-care experts, who wade through dozens of nominations before deciding on the winners and finalists.

ACHIEVEMENTS IN HEALTH CARE

Burton Grebin, MD
President and CEO
St. Mary’s Healthcare Systems for Children

2007 Finalist

Grebin has grown St. Mary’s from a small inpatient facility into a $100 million system operating two inpatient facilities and an extensive home-care and community network, serving nearly 4,000 children daily in Long Island, New York City and Westchester. During 40 years in healthcare, he has been a pediatrician, professor and health-care administrator, making his mark emphatically on St. Mary’s, based in Bayside, Queens, with home care operations based in New Hyde Park and Melville. Grebin, through St. Mary’s, set up the state’s largest home-care program for children and families with HIV/AIDS, the state’s only pediatric traumatic brain injury/coma recovery program and a palliative care program for children with life-threatening illnesses. A Port Washington resident, he also was instrumental in winning children’s rights to home care through the state’s long-term health-care program. A former director of pediatric care at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center, Dr. Grebin remains a professor of clinical pediatrics at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. He joined St. Mary’s in 1975 and was named executive director in 1982 and CEO in 1991, leading an organization that has grown to include more than 1,300 employees. He has served on the board of governors of the Greater New York Hospital Association and the steering committee on quality initiatives for the Healthcare Association of New York State.

In her quest to improve the health care delivered to all patients at Stony Brook University Medical Center, Gomes has a lot to show for her efforts. She has created programs that the hospital says help improve mortality rates, created teams able to quickly treat patients suffering from heart attacks and developed programs for the emergency department that increase efficiency in handling congestive heart failure, pneumonia and heart attacks. She is a former chair of the board of the American Society for Clinical Pathology and board member of the Clinical Laboratory Management Association. In addition, she has taught many students as a faculty member of Stony Brook’s School of Health,Technology and Management and at its business school. Since 1999, she has been a member of the Board of Examiners for the prestigious Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award Program, advising health-care providers and others on the application and award process. She is currently spearheading the hospital’s effort to implement a computerized physician order-entry system and electronic patient records.

Cathy Byrne
Director of Older Adult Services
Jewish Community Center of the Greater Five Towns

WINNER

When Cathy Byrne heard about a middle school in Whitwell, Tenn., where students were collecting paper clips to represent every Holocaust death, she called the principal to see if the children might like to meet people who’d lived through those horrors.

Byrne and four Holocaust survivors flew to Charlotte, N.C., rented a minivan, crossed the mountains and spent three days with the students.

The results were recorded in the movie “Paper Clips.”

“One survivor said, ‘It’s the most rewarding experience I had in my life,’” Byrne commented. “It’s a very powerful movie.”

While Holocaust survivors are unsung heroes, Cathy Byrne herself is a heroine, working at this Cedarhurst JCC to help thousands of elderly Long Islanders (including survivors) and acting as a bridge between the Holocaust and those born decades after it occurred.A mother of four, she created the JCC’s Holocaust Survivors Program which provides social, recreational and therapeutic services to more than 400 survivors, creating a “surrogate family” for them.

“The Holocaust survivor is a treasured population,” Byrne said. “This is history. I have a gift of working with history. A few years down the line, we won’t have survivors.”

Byrne, who attended Catholic schools, became interested in working with survivors out of a humanitarian impulse to help those in need.

“We created a whole department for Holocaust survivors,” Byrne said. “We’ve worked with local schools. We preserve the history of the Holocaust in many different forms.”

She matched sixth graders at Floral Park-Bellerose School with survivors, giving the elderly a link to youth and students a chance to hear their stories.

“The project presented an opportunity to learn history directly from those who lived it, something few students are able to experience,” said JCC Executive Director Rina Shkolnik.

Byrne said seeing is more than believing — it’s understanding that history is more than a written account; it’s part of our lives.

“We bring survivors into schools and the children touch the survivor’s [tattooed] numbers,” Byrne said. “That’s what they’ll remember down the line.”

With a growing elderly population, professionals like Byrne who help the aging are becoming more important. A registered nurse, she earned a Bachelor of Science in gerontology from Molloy College and a master’s in leisure program management and gerontology from Adelphi University.

“I love the aging population. I see incredible need,” she said. “It’s a very rewarding profession where you can make direct change, providing happiness and quality of life.”

At the JCC, she crafted many programs tailored to the needs of the elderly in East Rockaway, Far Rockaway, Lynbrook, Malverne, Valley Stream and West Hempstead. While she calls the elderly the “quiet population,” she hears their voice loud and clear.

“They’re very often a vulnerable population, not able to advocate,” Byrne said. “They’re very often alone or impoverished and need a health advocate.”

In addition to the Holocaust survivor program, she created programs for people and families of those with multiple sclerosis, brain injuries, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Byrne has hands-on experience, self education and a subspecialty in Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, multiple sclerosis and other geriatric diseases.

She supervises both staff and volunteers and, as a registered nurse, is qualified to provide blood pressure screenings and administer flu and pneumonia shots.

She also has volunteered as a religious education teacher at St. Agnes in Rockville Centre and at a soup kitchen known as The Inn in Hempstead and currently coaches a girls’ basketball team.

The survivors who traveled with her to Tennessee are still alive, she said. But “clients” who survived the Holocaust remain traumatized even 60 years later, haunted by flashbacks and nightmares, especially since Sept. 11 and the Iraq war.

“The emotional scars are so evident,” she said. “Even as they age and get closer to death, they’re surfacing.” –Claude Solnik

Lymphatic Research Foundation

2007 Finalist

More than 10 million people in the United States suffer from lymphatic disorders, yet this realm of research has long been neglected. The lymphatic system – known as a sort of second circulatory system – is related to circulation, immunity, inflammation and even cancer. Yet it has attracted far less attention from the public, and from researchers, than so many other medical fields. The East Hills-based group, led by President Wendy Chaite, has fought to change that and is making a difference. Founded in 1998, this national nonprofit has advanced research related to lymphatic diseases, lymphedema and related disorders. The group’s work has led to more scientific and medical research and a greater awareness of lymphatic disorders. The Lymphatic Research Foundation has lobbied Congress and the National Institutes of Health for research into lymphatic disease and helped create an international scientific conference series related to lymphatic function and disease. The foundation also created a quarterly scientific journal, set up a postdoctoral fellowship program for researchers and established the first endowed chair of lymphatic research and medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine. Finally, Chaite is leading the effort to create a National Lymphatic Disease Patient Registry and Tissue Bank.

In the human experience, the most difficult to confront is the death of a child. As part of her job, Gravina does it every day. A licensed social worker, she has spent 20 years at the Hospice Care Network, serving people with terminal illnesses. In 1984, she created the group’s child bereavement program, which serves as a model for other programs nationwide. Five years ago, she started the group’s perinatal program, offering support to parents choosing to give birth to children with terminal diseases. Counselors provide support from diagnosis through birth, and afterwards, through memorial services. The program won the Trailblazer Award this year at the Hospice and Palliative Care Association of New York State’s annual meeting.

COMMUNITY OUTREACH HERO

Alec Thundercloud, MD
Medical Director
Mobile Health Long Island

WINNER

A custom-made vehicle that looks like a reworked Winnebago is the transportation of choice for Dr. Alec Thundercloud, who has become the doctor for many poor Long Islanders, keeping families healthy through Mobile Health Long Island, the North Shore- Long Island Jewish Health System’s traveling clinic.

“The reason we found mobile units are so successful is transportation is a big issue for a lot of these families,” Thundercloud said.

Thundercloud parks this mobile medical unit in Hempstead at the Family and Children’s Association’s Hagedorn Family Resource Center five days a week. One day a week, he provides adult services at the Mary Brennan Inn soup kitchen, also in Hempstead.

The clinic, from June 2006 to February 2007, provided services to the poor on Long Island’s East End, helping people after church services at Grace Episcopal Church in Riverhead. The grant ran out, but the group recently got the funding it hopes to use to restart the program.

“Suffolk County has a lot of health disparities,” Thundercloud said. “We were surprised that, in addition to migrant farm workers, there are a lot of newly arrived immigrants from Eastern Europe who had no access to health care.”

While some doctors may shrink away from the uninsured, the immigrant and often indigent populations are Thundercloud’s target group. “We get them plugged in,” he said of efforts to qualify children for state-sponsored insurance programs. “Every child is entitled to health insurance. We make sure these children are getting health insurance. Once we get them signed up with a health insurance plan, assigned to a primary health-care provider, we’re very happy.”

A sort of suburban medical missionary, he targets an estimated 250,000 uninsured Nassau and Suffolk residents.

“They’ve been helping us throughout the years, making sure we got our check ups,” said Yanet Martinez, a Hempstead resident who’s been using the clinic since age 13. “They’ve been very helpful.”

Elia Guevara, another Hempstead resident, said she and her children couldn’t simply travel to the emergency room easily. “I don’t have a car to drive there,” Guevara said.

Patients are happy to talk about the man who, despite his name, seems like a sunbeam through a health-care storm, providing a life-saving link.

“He’s the nicest doctor that I’ve ever met,” Martinez said. “I go to him for anything I need. Checkups. To make sure I’m doing good.”

Buoyed by the success of the program, North Shore-LIJ plans to roll out a mobile dental clinic this fall.

There’s a certain irony in that Thundercloud, a Native American of the Ho-Chunk tribe, helps many immigrants, but he welcomes anyone in need.

“We found new immigrants have been one of the top populations we deal with,” he said. “I don’t want to discourage anybody else from accessing these resources.” — Claude Solnik

Michael Brisman, MD
Partner
Neurological Surgery P.C.

2007 Finalist

You don’t have to be a brain surgeon to help people, but now and then, it helps. A board certified neurosurgeon, Brisman has performed hundreds of brain surgeries, helped hospitals and reached out to doctors and the general population. The Harvard grad who got his medical degree from Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons cofounded the Long Island Neurological Institute in Rockville Centre, which provides education and outreach to patients and helps hospitals buy cutting-edge equipment. Brisman also is co-medial director of Long Island Gamma Knife and chief of surgical neuro-oncology at South Nassau Communities Hospital in Oceanside. Since 2005, he also has been chief of the division of neurosurgery and co-director of the Neuroscience Institute at Winthrop University Hospital in Mineola. Brisman also serves on the board of the International Radiosurgery Support Association and the New York State Neurosurgical Society and as managing editor of The Bulletin, a quarterly publication of the Nassau County Medical Society.

Michael Stoltz
Executive Director
Clubhouse of Suffolk

2007 Finalist

Quitting smoking isn’t easy. Some people bury packs in the backyard only to dig them up. Others have, as Mark Twain wrote, insisted that giving up cigarettes must be easy, they’ve done it so often. And these are people without psychological problems. Those with mental problems are both major consumers and victims of cigarettes. With that in mind, Stoltz has helped create and implement a smoking cessation program targeting people with mental illness. The program includes classes, medical consultation, peer support and individualized plans. Stoltz lead the organization’s push to replicate its program at three Long Island day treatment facilities. They also trained more than 100 physicians, psychiatrists and nurses regarding nicotine’s interaction with medications.

Robert Weitzner
Executive Director
Ronald McDonald House of Long Island

2007 Finalist

When an 11-year-old Iraqi boy born with holes in his heart was operated on at Schneider Children’s Hospital, the heroes who helped weren’t only doctors. Captain Brian Freeman, who met the boy’s father in Iraq, worked to get the visas. And Weitzner and Ronald McDonald House in New Hyde Park provided a home away from home for the boy and his father to stay. Medical help for children requires more than just treatment. Through Ronald McDonald House, families of children being treated far from home have a place to stay before, during and after operations. For as little as $2 a day, the more than 100 volunteers at this 42-bedroom facility – complete with a library, play areas, kitchens and laundry rooms – provide comfort, care and love for children suffering from cancer, heart disease and other ailments. And most important, these pint-sized patients obtain care while staying in close physical contact with their families. Although good work is done one person and one family at a time, this facility has welcomed more than 21,000 residents and more than 10,000 seriously ill children since 1986.

Roman Urbanczyk, MD
Medical Director
RotaCare

2007 Finalist

A member of the American Thoracic Society and board certified in internal medicine, Urbanczyk is president of Valley Stream Medical and affiliated with numerous Long Island hospitals. In addition to his own medical work, Urbanczyk leads RotaCare, a non-profit through which about 100 volunteers, including many doctors and other healthcare professionals, provide free health care to the needy in Nassau, Suffolk and Queens. RotaCare, at its Uniondale office, provides about 4,000 free office visits and services valued at about $1.5 million a year. The group, through its Prescription Program for Indigent Populations, provides nearly half a million dollars worth of free medications annually for the needy. RotaCare acts as a safety net for patients who would otherwise rely on emergency rooms, which don’t provide much of the preventive care and health maintenance the organization offers.

In addition to running the family medicine center at this 441-bed hospital, Williams manages its employee health-services and prenatal-care-assistance programs. Besides helping many long-time local residents, she spearheaded the center’s efforts to provide medical care and social services to relocated survivors of Hurricane Katrina. Williams is also active in the Nassau County Perinatal Services Network’s advocacy and planning committees, the New York Association for Ambulatory Care, the Asthma Coalition of Long Island and the Urban League of Long Island. A member of the Association of Family Medicine Administrators and Society of Human Resource Management, she stays current in many fields. Williams also works with Better Home Health Care Agency in Rockville Centre, providing health services to its employees. And she has worked with the Nassau-Suffolk Health Council to facilitate access to health insurance information and enrollment. She is an associate minister of the Merrick Park Baptist Church, where she has helped edit the church newsletter and served on the board. Together with the Merrick Park Baptist Church, she helped arrange health fairs, wellness workshops and seminars. Williams has also been president of the Suffolk chapter of Free Women in Christ, which provides support and referrals to women and children dealing with issues such as parenting, domestic violence and self-defense.

Donna Bacon
African American Outreach Coordinator
Sisters United in Health/Hermanas Unidas in Saludad

WINNER

While Donna Bacon examined her breasts for cancer last July, she felt a lump that made her nervous. A mammogram showed nothing. A sonogram found a fatty mass. Experts said there was no reason. But she worried.

After all, Bacon was already encouraging African American women to check for breast cancer in her role as African American outreach coordinator for a program run by Adelphi University. She decided it would be better to be safe than sorry.

“It was so small, but I felt it,” Bacon said. “The doctor told me, ‘We’ll keep an eye on it.’ Because of my family history, I insisted on a biopsy.”

Bacon – who was 4 years old when her mother died of breast cancer at age 36 – spotted a disease the doctor and devices missed. A breast biopsy indicated she had early-stage breast cancer. Even after a lumpectomy, another biopsy showed persistent cancer. Bacon had a mastectomy and reconstructive surgery.

She finished four months of chemotherapy for breast cancer on May 15 and a day later received her doctorate in human behavior studies from Columbia University.

“I was overwhelmed,” Bacon said. “I was ecstatic. I didn’t think I was going to finish my dissertation. It was one of the happiest days in my life.”

Bacon has not only fought her own battle with breast cancer; she’s helped hundreds of others through Sisters United in Health, run by the Adelphi New York Statewide Breast Cancer Hotline and Support Program.

She points to alarming numbers: An estimated 19,240 African American women are expected to be diagnosed with breast cancer this year. Even worse, breast cancer is the second leading cause of death among African American women, she said.

“It’s not that more African American women are diagnosed with breast cancer. They’re diagnosed later. So they have a higher mortality rate,” Bacon said. “If we can make women aware of the risk factors, hopefully, they won’t get it.”

Through Sisters United, Bacon leads educational workshops and reaches out into the community, educating women about health and urging them to perform self examinations.

“We go into communities,” she said. “We go into churches, laundromats, wherever there are women who may benefit from our services.”

Although many Hispanics lack insurance, she said African American women are more likely to be insured. But that doesn’t mean they detect cancer. “They’re so busy taking care of everybody else, they don’t go to get the mammogram,” Bacon said.

She encourages women to do monthly breast exams, so they’ll know when there’s something new that could be cancer. “That’s the only way to tell when a change happens,” she said.

In addition to her work with those in the community facing breast cancer, Bacon also gets the word out about other health-care issues through the classroom. A professor at Nassau Community College’s Health Education Department, she teaches about personal and family health issues, death and dying and human sexuality.

She holds a BA in psychology and an MSW from Adelphi University. She also holds an MS in health education and, since May, a doctorate in education in health and human behavior studies from Columbia University.

She views herself as being on a life-saving mission, working to save women like her mother who, if they detect the disease, can defeat it. She still remembers a woman saying she examined her breasts and detected cancer after Bacon advised her. The cancer was removed through surgery.

“She said, ‘You saved my life,’” Bacon noted. “‘If I didn’t speak to you, I wouldn’t have done it. I would have put it off longer and longer.’” — Claude Solnik

Helen Johnson
Health and Nutrition Manager
Children’s Community Head Start

2007 Finalist

Johnson has fed the stomachs and souls of thousands of children, as head of nutrition for this Head Start program in Ronkonkoma for nearly two decades. She rose from a part-time position to one where she supervises nurses, audiologists and nutritionists serving more than 150 children and families each year. Johnson tracks the childrens’ health progress and provides health-related materials and referrals. She arranges vision screenings for preschoolers, advocates for parents seeking health care and contacts doctors regarding services for those in need. Johnson even helps stock the Head Start pantry for the needy, letting poor families “shop” there while feeling like someone in a local supermarket. The very definition of dedication, she also helps to maintain health histories, arranges health screenings and immunizations and has also created an annual health and community information fair.

Lorraine Lehmann
Patient Care Associate
Glen Cove Hospital

2007 Finalist

After she goes home from her job at Glen Cove Hospital’s emergency department, Lehmann could easily rest. Instead, she volunteers for many organizations, including the Locust Valley Emergency Medical Service, as a Red Cross disaster action team member, providing help to families touched by tragedy. She’s also a member of the Salvation Army’s community emergency response team, helping with search-and-rescue efforts. After being trained at the One Spirit Seminary, she serves as an interfaith minister, ministering to the spirit as well as the body. A calming influence for people facing their personal, or literal, storms, she is someone who gives to those facing crises. Someone who both in her professional and volunteer activities embodies hope, Lehmann has made a difference at moments when peoples’ lives were in turmoil.

Before Smookler arrived in 2000, Stony Brook’s food service program got a dismal rating from Press Ganey, which measures satisfaction at health-care institutions, placing it in the bottom 3 percent for inpatient food services. By last year, it had risen to the head of the pack in the 90th percentile. She implemented “Distinguished Dining,” a room service program with 17 different menus and set up a call center with room service operators and “ambassadors” who deliver food to rooms dressed in black and white. A registered dietician and former president of the Long Island Dietetic Association, she and her team have consulted with other hospitals. The hospital now views its kitchen as similar to one in a restaurant with a hotel-like model for providing meals. She also served on the Port Jefferson School District Board of Education from 1996 to 2002, including four years as president.

NURSE HERO

Catherine Napoli
Nurse
VA Medical Center, Northport

2007 Finalist

Napoli exemplifies both the art and science of nursing, blending to make a significant contribution as nurse manager of the Veterans Administration’s complex acute care unit. She was part of a team that created practice standards and raised quality of care at the unit, orchestrating the unit’s initial Commission of Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities certification process. She also collaborated to create a restorative nursing education program for the extended-care staff, which improved residents’ quality of life. Napoli is a passionate leader, continually striving to create a quality environment. Last year, in collaboration with her staff, she created the TEAL concept, defined as teamwork, excellence, accountability and leadership. The initiative has boosted patient and staff morale and has been recognized as a best practice to be shared throughout the national health-care system. Napoli is recognized throughout the medical center as an exceptional clinician, leader, educator, mentor and patient advocate.

Joyce Meisinger
Nurse
Nassau University Medical Center

2007 Finalist

Meisinger’s contributions extend far beyond the walls of Nassau University Medical Center, where she has worked for more than 30 years. As nurse manager for the pediatric clinic, she supervises the delivery of health services to about 16,000 patient visits each year. She also manages care in specialties including high-risk newborns, infectious diseases, surgery, gastrointestinal medicine and neurology. She innovated a vaccine-check system to ensure accuracy in the hospital’s fast-paced environment and also planned and implemented an electronic medical record system for her unit. Meisinger spends time every year volunteering as a nurse at a summer camp for children with chronic and terminal illnesses, enriching their experiences and ensuring their health. She has raised money and walked for the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation, been a medical volunteer for the Long Island Marathon and participated in the March of Dimes walk to raise money for the medical center’s neonatal intensive care unit.

Lisa Farrell
Nurse
Peconic Bay Medical Center

An experienced nurse, Farrell is truly dedicated to the service of her country. She began her military career as an officer in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps, becoming head nurse of the pediatric unit in the Army Medical Center in Germany, where she directed the disassembly of the pediatric unit and setup of a maxillo-facial unit during Operation Desert Storm. After nine years of active duty, she transferred to the Army Reserves. She has worked for the past 10 years at Peconic Bay Medical Center, where she has developed a teaching plan for infant safety and cardiopulmonary resuscitation classes for the prenatal education program. Farrell teaches basic life-support courses for the Army and the community. She trains retriever puppies to be seeing-eye dogs with her husband and volunteers at a homeless shelter. Her duties as chief nurse in her Army Reserves unit include monthly and annual training. She was responsible for coordinating and assuring quality training for the unit’s medical personnel. During annual Army training, she has gone to Germany to provide direct care to wounded soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan in the post-anesthesia care unit. Her nursing skills and leadership abilities have led to her recent promotion to the rank of colonel.

Mary Cavaciuti
Nurse
Long Island Jewish Medical Center

2007 Finalist

She is known by her colleagues and patients for her commitment to service excellence and quality patient care. A nurse in Long Island Jewish Medical Center’s intensive care unit for the past 16 years, Cavaciuti championed a groundbreaking infection-control initiative that dramatically reduced the number of new infections last year. She also chaired the planning committee for the intensive care unit’s multidisciplinary grand rounds presentation on sepsis, aimed at reducing morbidity and mortality in health-care institutions. She inspires her team to pursue excellence with a passion and enhance the patient experience. She is roundly acknowledged for her warmth and empathy, and known for her consistently pleasant outlook and disposition, valuing the contributions of each team member.

Rorrie Schwartz
Nursing Supervisor
Long Beach Medical Center

WINNER

Kind, caring and compassionate, Rorrie Schwartz is an example of nursing at its finest, overcoming personal hardships and using them to give quality care and make a difference in patients’ lives.

A 42-year nursing veteran, Schwartz has spent 35 of them at Long Beach Medical Center, where she has risen in the ranks to become a night shift supervisor in the 200-bed nursing facility.

She is a role model for her colleagues, who describe her as generous, dedicated and always there for both the staff and patients in the facility, which has transitioned from giving long-term care to operating as a mixed facility providing rehabilitation, hospice and long-term care.

Her dedication extends from heading for the hospital in the face of an oncoming hurricane two decades ago, to the demands and challenges of the night shift, where making a sandwich for a hungry resident at 4 a.m is just as important as a resident’s radical change in condition.

More than the late-night episodes of disoriented residents and the daily ins and outs of the job, Schwartz says the greatest reward for being a nurse is being there for residents who are coming to the close of their lives.

“When I can talk with them and give them the support they need, that is nursing,” she said. “When you call a family in the middle of the night to tell them their loved one’s condition has worsened and are able to give them emotional support, that is nursing. When a family calls after a death and asks, ‘What do we do?’ [and] I can give them help and support, it is an incredibly satisfying aspect of my work.”

Nights are a crucial time for many residents, she said, with residents afraid to go to sleep for fear of not waking up the next morning.

“You try to make them comfortable, to [help them] ease up so they’re not as afraid,” Schwartz said. She is there for the 98-year-old who wakes up wanting to go to the Bronx to see his children, the resident with dementia who wants to go shopping at 3 a.m.

Schwartz uses her own experience as a breast cancer survivor to connect on a deeper level with many patients, adding perspective to their own conditions and giving them support. “That takes it into a different level, because to a degree, I’ve been there, so I can understand what some people are feeling,” she said.

Two years ago, a biopsy showed that Schwartz had early-stage breast cancer. She continued working at the hospital through her 36 radiation treatments, she said, driving for 40 minutes after she got off work at 7 a.m.

“I used to go into radiation and cry,” she said.

She is one of the lucky ones. Three days after she finished radiation therapy, a biopsy was done and the cancer was gone.

Her husband of 40 years has been with her through it all, she said, helping her through the exhaustion of radiation therapy and more, with constant support and devotion.

“We’ve stayed the course,” she said. “Has it always been easy? No. The positives outweigh the negatives, and we’ve used that to make it through the hard times. We’ve got a mutual admiration society going.”

What sets her apart is that her focus is not just on the physical care of her patients, but also on the emotional care – the whole person. And why?

“I always wanted to be with people and take care of people, and that’s what I’ve done,” Schwartz said. “I’ve done what I’ve wanted to do in life. I still get a charge out of it.

Rabin has become a “beloved fixture” to both colleagues and patients. As chief of ambulatory care, obstetrics and gynecology, and head of urogynecology at Long Island Jewish Medical Center, Rabin is a true healer, devoted to providing patients with the dignity and respect new mothers deserve and Rabin is the driving force behind the hospital’s Prenatal Care Assistance Program. She is peerless in her efforts to provide the best pre- and post-natal care to the women in her charge — regardless of their immigration status or ability to pay. Rabin believes that every woman is entitled to deliver a healthy baby in the most stress-free and nurturing environment possible. She has worked tirelessly to ensure the program at the hospital was able to receive funding from a state grant, allowing the program to offer dental care to participants, arming women against potential threats to their pregnancies from gum-related diseases.

Joseph D’Amore, MD
Allergist
Private Practice

WINNER

An allergist with three bustling offices in Huntington, Baldwin and Forest Hills, Joseph D’Amore has a fondness for fine cuisine. He has become a respected figure in the Long Island community, dishing out delicious meals along with healthy doses of service.

A gourmet chef before going to medical school, Dr. D’Amore now uses his culinary passion for charity events, including the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation’s “Cook for the Cure” program and the Great Chefs event, raising thousands of dollars for the endeavors.

But cooking for a cause is just the start to D’Amore’s big, half-Italian, half-Jewish heart. He spends anywhere from 25 to 50 hours each month volunteering, on top of a 60-hour work week. He has been recognized by the Family Service League and Goodwill Industries of Greater New York and New Jersey for his efforts.

“It’s within his heart to help people,” said Bill Forrester, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Goodwill “…There’s not a cause that reaches out to this guy that he doesn’t say, ‘Yes, I’ll help you.’”

D’Amore comes on his free time to provide medical checkups for disabled people on behalf of the organization, Forrester said. He also gives shots to seniors at nursing homes and senior citizen centers.

A “bit of a throwback” to the old family doctor, D’Amore makes house calls to patients who find it challenging to make the trip to one of his offices. He’s been doing it since buying his first practice, starting with a wheelchair-bound patient with cerebral palsy.

“She lived a half mile from my office,” he said. “I said, ‘Why not on the way home, once every two or three weeks, stop off and give a shot?’ It would take me nothing to do this, but for her mother, it was huge deal.”

The family repays him by giving collected items for him to donate.

“I show a little compassion, and a lot of people … benefit from that,” D’Amore said. “As long as I’m giving her daughter shots, [she] makes sure that every time I go, I leave with a bag of something. It could be toys; it could be clothes; it could be books.”

D’Amore heads up an annual blood drive every Thanksgiving weekend. Friends, family and patients rally to offer support, averaging 90 units of blood in one day – an impressive figure.

“The boss there tells me that if they break 60, they consider it a miracle,” D’Amore said.

His patients help him, too, giving him clean and bagged clothing and boxes of canned food and toys, which he donates to various organizations. He also has gone international, collecting medications and equipment from other doctors, which he ships to orphanages in Latin America.

For the past 19 years, D’Amore has volunteered in a South Bronx clinic every Friday morning.

“I take care of some of the sickest asthmatics in North America,” he said, adding that the area has the highest mortality rate from asthma in the country.

Brooklyn born and raised, D’Amore has modeled himself after an old-school role model, “Doc Goldberg,” who had a profound impact on him as a boy.

“We knew Dr. Goldberg did not have money, because he lived in East New York, and no one had money,” D’Amore says.“… I saw that he commanded respect, and that meant a lot to me. He made house calls, he took chicken soup for payment. I wanted to be old Doc Goldberg.”

Now, half a century later, “Doc Joe” not only has met but exceeded that example through more than a quarter century of service to the Long Island community. — Alison Snyder

Fishkin’s service to his community and country sets him apart. In addition to his responsibilities as chief medical officer and medical director for Island Nursing and Rehab Center, Fishkin is also on staff at John T. Mather and St. Charles Hospitals, and was recently named medical director of Mather Hospital’s new transitional-care unit. In 1988, Fishkin fulfilled a lifelong dream and joined the Army Reserves. A lieutenant colonel with the New York Air National Guard in Westhampton, he served with the First Infantry in Operation Desert Storm in Iraq from 1990 to 1991, and was mobilized again for Operation Joint Endeavor in Germany and Slovenia in 1997. Fishkin responded with his Coast Guard station to the crash of Flight 800 and he was recently called to duty on August 4 to provide medical support for the space shuttle Endeavour. For the past 28 years, Fishkin has been an assistant professor for the Department of Family Medicine at Stony Brook University, and he has also been an assistant professor at the New York College of Osteopathic Medicine since 1978. Internationally, he has held an academic appointment to the University of Slovenia Medical School since 1997.

Roger Feldman
Director of Behavior and Health Services
Family and Children’s Association

2007 Finalist

Feldman has devoted his career to enriching the lives of people with mental illness and mental disabilities. He has been the director of behavioral and health services of the Family and Children’s Association for the past 10 years and also is the medical director of two of its facilities. He developed innovations in the delivery of psychiatric services to a spectrum of patients, from those in need of short-term support to those who live with chronic mental illness. Feldman is one of the first physicians in Nassau County to provide psychiatric services for autistic and mentally disabled children and adults in schools, the community and residential institutions. He has been commended for his participation in disaster relief and his contribution to the “Project Liberty” program that provided free crisis-counseling services to those affected by the 9/11 tragedy. He has been described as a humble man, dedicated to educating those in his field, including fellow physicians, psychologists, social workers and especially psychiatric nurse practitioners.

Rosengart and his team have changed the scope and quality of cardiovascular surgical services offered to patients on Long Island. His excellence as a physician, surgeon, educator and researcher greatly contribute to Stony Brook University Medical Center. He was named chief of cardiothoracic surgery in January 2006, and his arrival brought many new and cutting-edge cardiothoracic surgical options and technologies. Rosengart also serves as codirector of the hospital’s Heart Center. He ensures the established quality of the hospital’s cardiovascular care delivery system and brings his compassion, knowledge and skill to the hospital. His expertise includes surgery for all forms of heart disease, including high-risk and complex cases. He has performed pioneering work applying novel strategies, including the thorascopic “hybrid” bypass, bloodless surgery for patients wishing to avoid transfusions and gene therapy. Rosengart has been hailed as a top doctor and surgeon. He was elected in September to the Board of Directors of the American Heart Association of Long Island.

VOLUNTEER HERO

Candy Misner
Board Member
South Nassau Communities Hospital

2007 Finalist

The words “board member” conjure an image of someone who attends meetings while remaning on the fringe of an organization. Not Misner. At age 78, many people may be busy seeking help, but Misner is a font of support for South Nassau and its patients. A volunteer there for 17 years, she has only become more involved. In addition to serving as a board member, since 1999 she has been president of South Nassau’s Central Council of Auxilians, helping to raise funds. She has led numerous fund-raisers including the Evening of Good Taste — a food- and wine-tasting event, walks, health fairs and golf outings. Reaching beyond South Nassau, she served as president of the Nassau-Suffolk Council of Auxiliaries in 2006.

Jacqueline Alm
Volunteer
New Island Hospital

2007 Finalist

Ten years is a long time to hold a job even with good pay and benefits, but Alm has volunteered at New Island for that long. She has become a part of the heart and help of this Massapequa hospital, coordinating and motivating others, all the while donating her time. Alm created a program that provides toys to children admitted into the ambulatory surgery unit. She got the gifts through letters and face-to-face meetings and created personalized certificates for the children. Alm said that when she sees children admitted for surgery smile at receiving the gift, she knows “that I made a difference.” Alm has recruited other volunteers and also fills in at the information desk early in the morning before other volunteers arrive. Patricia Stickle, spokeswoman at New Island, quotes a saying: “You never stand so tall as when you stoop to help a child.” “New Island believes that Jackie, indeed, stands extremely tall,” Stickle said. Alm looks at her work as a way of making a difference in children’s lives. “I have a lot of blessings in my life,” she said. “And this is my way of giving back.”

Helping one child is virtuous; helping thousands is heroic. In addition to his role directing intensive care for children, Silver is an attending physician for pediatric critical care at Schneider in New Hyde Park. In that role, Silver has treated seriously ill children at Schneider’s critical care unit for 20 years, showing not only enormous good will but endurance. A humanitarian who has saved many lives, he has rescued children from the ravages of disease and saved trapped victims from burning buildings. Although putting out metaphorical fires is a big enough job, he’s also battalion chief for the Syosset Fire Department. He serves as an associate professor of clinical pediatrics at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and received the Teacher of the Year Award from North Shore-LIJ’s Department of Pediatrics for 2005-2006. Silver says he went into pediatric medicine to help children. As to why he became a volunteer fireman, he says that was to fulfill his own childhood dream of becoming a firefighter.

Veterans with sleep, work, or family problems have a place to go thanks to Rosen. In addition to being CEO of Rosen Associates Management Corp., a Jericho-based firm that owns and manages shopping centers and commercial properties, Rosen since 1995 has led about 4,500 Naval, Marine and Coast Guard reservists and volunteers since 1995. But he and his wife Florence this summer made their mark in another way, creating the Rosen Family Wellness Center, in which North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers provide care at no cost to law enforcement officers and veterans and their families. The counselors seek to provide support to those heading to or returning from war and have expertise in issues related to deployment. Rosen also is a trustee of the North Shore-LIJ system and chairman of the board’s emergency-preparedness committee.

Susan Spellman
Executive Director
Reach Out for Youth with Ileitis and Colitis Inc.

WINNER

In 1975, when Susan Spellman’s youngest son at age 8 was diagnosed with ileocolitis – inflammation of the small intestine and colon – she was full of questions. So when Spellman heard that doctors were studying how parents responded to learning more about the disease, she volunteered.

“When (the study) ended, I felt everybody should be educated,” Spellman said. “There should be a vehicle for families to meet and share information.”

She created a group in 1979 that provides information and help to children and families with Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis and other gastrointestinal diseases.

The National Foundation for Ileitis and Colitis (since renamed the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of America) had a support group for adults. She started a support group for children and another for adults which since then has helped hundreds of people.

“Kids met other kids,” Spellman said. “They realized they weren’t the only one who was sick.”

Many Americans remain in the dark about Crohn’s, named for the doctor who identified this ailment. The disease results in inflammation of portions of the digestive tract. When it affects the small intestine or the ileum it’s called ileitis and when it affects the colon it’s called colitis.

Mild cases can have only minimal effects, but children with severe cases can be hospitalized for weeks, be fatigued and have trouble participating in activities.

While medical help is crucial, Spellman provides resources, encouragement, emotional support and a chance for children with the disease to interact.

“Usually when the kids are together, they don’t even talk about their illness,” she said. “But they go home knowing there are other people like me.”

Spellman, who runs the group out of a home office in Melville, also works one-on-one with parents, meeting, talking on the phone and answering questions from around the world via e-mail.

“I need to reinforce that this is going to get better,” Spellman said. “Children have to build up a relationship with their doctors. It’s not someone you’re going to see once or twice a year.”

Ira Cohen, president of the group, said Spellman helped his family when their 4-year-old daughter was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease.

“Susan was there every step of the way,” he said. “From taking our phone calls any time of the day or night to coming with us to the hospital during the countless tests and procedures.”

Stacy Goodman, who 11 years ago learned that her then 5-year-old son had Crohn’s disease, said Spellman helped her child, her husband and herself.

“An angel, and I call her an angel, sat next to me and started to communicate in a calm, loving way that we would be all right,” Goodman said. “She showed us pictures of her own son and the progression of his growth and alleviated fears in a way that no other could have accomplished.”

Goodman said Spellman changed her life and her way of looking at this disease, starting a healing process. “Recovery started at that moment for our family,” she said of Spellman’s early conversations with her family.

In nearly 30 years of advocacy and assistance, Spellman has gone to hundreds of homes, schools and hospitals to spread the word about these diseases and to help those suffering from them.

She has created not only a support network, but a community complete with meetings, hospital visits, holiday parties, baseball games, picnics, education and the relationships she forms with children and their families.

Her group also raised money for research and helped set up a database that could be used to help cure the disease.

“We’re just one big family there for each other,” she said. “Some of the kids have come back and said, ‘What can I do to help?’ They want to give back.” — Claude Solnik